Renewable Agriculture and Oh my darling clementine: heterogeneous Food Systems preferences for sustainable citrus fruits cambridge.org/raf Giuseppe Di Vita1, Riccardo Vecchio2, Massimiliano Borrello2, Raffaele Zanchini1 , Giulia Maesano3, Giovanni Gulisano4, Filippo Brun1 and Mario D’Amico3 Research Paper 1Department of Agricultural, Forest and Food Science (Disafa), University of Turin, Grugliasco, Italy; 2Department Cite this article: Di Vita G, Vecchio R, Borrello of Agricultural Sciences, University of Naples Federico II, Portici, Italy; 3Department of Agriculture, Food and M, Zanchini R, Maesano G, Gulisano G, Brun F, 4 D’Amico M (2021). Oh my darling clementine: Environment (Di3A), University of Catania, Catania, Italy and Department of Agriculture, Mediterranean University heterogeneous preferences for sustainable of Reggio Calabria, Reggio Calabria, Italy citrus fruits. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1017/ Abstract S174217052100017X The current study assesses consumer preferences toward different production methods of Received: 12 December 2020 clementines (Citrus clementina). Based on a survey of Italian urban individuals (N = 345), Revised: 11 February 2021 responsible for household food purchases, it investigates whether clementines produced by Accepted: 25 March 2021 means of integrated farming system are perceived as a desirable alternative to organic and Key words: conventional fruits. A conjoint analysis was applied to estimate the mean relative importance Consumer preferences; integrated farming of three different clementine attributes (namely, price, production method and presence of a system (IFS); organic; production method; geographical indication) and consumer utility attached to the different attribute levels. Results protected geographical indication (PGI); sustainability revealed price as the most important attribute; while only organic farming provided positive utility to consumers. Subsequently, the sample was clustered into four distinct market seg- Author for correspondence: ments based on part-worth estimates, offering useful insights for practitioners and policy Raffaele Zanchini, makers to design tailor-made interventions aimed at fostering sustainable clementines E-mail: [email protected] consumption. Introduction Achieving sustainability in the global food industry is a burning issue of current production and consumption systems (Aschemann-Witzel et al., 2013). In this regard, and particularly in recent years, consumer preferences have shifted toward more sustainable purchasing choices, with increasing number of individuals including more environmentally-friendly pro- ducts in their diets (Vermeir et al., 2020). This is due to the spreading awareness on the impacts of conventional agricultural practices (Moisander, 2007), as well as to the growing interest for healthiness, nutritional and safety food dimensions (Asioli et al., 2017; Migliore et al., 2018). Within this scenario, the uptake of organic products has been observed so far as the main sustainable food consumption option (Asian et al., 2019). Organic food consumption keeps growing consistently worldwide (Willer and Lernoud, 2019); with organic produce counting on a market of 90 billion euros in the world, showing the United States as the top market country (40 billion euros), followed by Germany (10 billion euros), France (7.9 billion euros), China (7.6 billion euros) and Italy (3.1 billion euros). Consumers appreciate organic products and attach to them higher quality and nutritional properties, as well as lower envir- onmental impacts and health risks (Govindan et al., 2014; Mota and Oliveira, 2014; Panzone et al., 2016; Pappalardo et al., 2019; Rizzo et al., 2020). However, while organic standards gen- erate increased environmental performances, they are still a risk for producers in terms of eco- nomic gains, and in many contexts, a trade-off between economic and environmental sustainability is necessary (Freda et al., 2015; Niggli, 2015; Jeswani et al., 2018). For this reason, integrated farming system (IFS) has been proposed, in the last decades, as an alternative to © The Author(s), 2021. Published by organic production, able to ensure profitability and lower risks for producers, while maintain- Cambridge University Press on behalf of ing the attributes of increased quality in environmental and health terms (Falcone et al., 2020). Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems. This In this study, IFS should not be confused with integrated livestock/crop farms. Integrated is an Open Access article, distributed under farming is ‘a science-based, decision-making process that identifies and reduces risks from the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ pests and pest management related strategies, coordinates the use of pest biology, environmen- by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, tal information, and available technology to prevent unacceptable levels of pest damage by the distribution, and reproduction in any medium, most economical means, while minimizing risk to people, property, resources, and the envir- provided the original work is properly cited. onment’ (NIFA, 2013). Compared to conventional production, integrated production attempts to move the goal from yield maximization to cost reduction and product quality (Tamis and Van Den Brink, 1999) by implementing management strategies that limit as much as possible the use of synthetic compounds and the production of hazardous waste. In a nutshell, inte- grated agriculture reduces the use of chemicals by integrating both organic and conventional Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. 02 Oct 2021 at 09:42:41, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use. 2 Giuseppe Di Vita et al. farming systems (Reganold et al., 2001). Albeit IFS has not gained investigating the potential of clementines produced under inte- so far the same traction of organic agriculture and its environ- grated agriculture as an alternative to organic and conventional mental performances are inherently lower than those of organic ones, and whether consumers respond positively to this produc- productions, in many circumstances, it is the only feasible option tion method. Clementines were chosen for their wide consump- for some producers (Reganold et al., 2001). Farmers’ implemen- tion in the Italian fresh fruit market, grown in recent years tation of integrated agriculture has been widely investigated in compared to other citrus fruits (RRNb, 2020). More specifically, the scholarly literature, identifying various adoption determi- this study seeks to answer the following two research questions: nants, such as financial aspects (Lavik et al., 2020), pesticides (1) Is there among clementine consumers a defined preference knowledge (Bagheri et al., 2019), access to highly demanding hierarchy among IFS, organic and conventional production meth- market segments (Buurma and Van der Velden, 2017), perceived ods and which of the three production methods is more capable complexity (Peshin, 2013) and positive contact with agricultural to differentiate clementines on the market? (2) Are there well- extension agents (Stallman and James, 2015). However, an overarch- established market segments among consumers that could suggest ing interpretation of these drivers is hard to reach, due to context- ad hoc promotional strategies? specific issues depending on diverse IFS approaches, crops, agricul- Answers to these research questions could have important tural systems and geographical areas (Stallman and James, 2015; implications for the market valorization of clementines produced Midega et al., 2016;Zhanget al., 2018; Sadique Rahman, 2020), with sustainable methods by citrus producers. Particularly, leading for instance to a wider adoption in developed countries insights will provide practical information on the potential of compared to developing nations (Alwang et al., 2019). clementines carrying different quality labels, as well as providing While plenty of studies have analyzed consumer aspects suggestions for targeted interventions aimed at prompting clem- related to organic agriculture (Rana and Paul, 2017; Annunziata entines consumption. et al., 2019a; Katt and Meixner, 2020), only a few studies have addressed consumers’ preferences for fruit and vegetable products Contextualization in sustainable agricultural approaches: produced with integrated management system (Loureiro et al., three ways to produce clementines 2001, Scarpa et al., 2005), with limited results and often reporting contrasting evidences. For instance, some studies show that con- The current study focuses on comparing the following three cul- sumers who have knowledge of sustainable practices and have tivation methods adopted in clementine production: conven- made previous purchases of such products are more likely to tional, organic and integrated farming. These three different buy and willing to pay a premium price for fruit and vegetables farming systems are characterized by specific practices and regu- grown under integrated farming (Govindasamy and Italia, 1998; lations related to the use of fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, her- Cranfield and Magnusson, 2003), and that willingness to pay bicides and fito-regulators. for these products is higher than for conventional and organic It is widely known that different types of sustainable farming ones (Yi, 2019); while other studies found that having prior famil- methods are proposed as an alternative